Wife of Auckland crime boss ordered to hand over diamante watch, judge calls out her deliberate lies

Drug syndicate ringleader Ka Kit (Chris) Yim, pictured with wife Chien Hui Wu. Photo / Facebook

The wife of a drug syndicate ringleader has been ordered to hand over her "father's" diamante watch, while a judge has lambasted her "determined attempt to mislead the court" in an effort to keep millions of dollars of tainted assets.

Chien-Hui Wu is married to crime boss Ka Kit Yim, who is also known as Chris and was jailed for more than a decade after New Zealand authorities discovered nearly 40kg of crystal meth hidden inside a Chinese shipment of granite tea trays in February 2016.

A further investigation into Yim and his assets led to raids on Auckland properties and the discovery of millions of dollars in cash, more drugs, and the seizure of several sports cars.

Last month Yim and Wu, who are both New Zealand citizens and married in 2005, were unsuccessful in their resistance to the police's application for forfeiture orders under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act.

Their loot included a $1.1 million property, 12 vehicles worth $1.3m, $2.4m in cash and funds, nearly $300,000 of jewellery and handbags, four dozen bottles of vintage wine, and some $130,000 of profit.

Some of the vehicles included a Lamborghini Gallardo, a BMW 1M Coupe, a Ferrari 458 Speciale and a Porsche Cayman GTS.

A 2007 style of a white Chanel diamante watch, similar to Wu's. Photo / Supplied

But Justice Pheroze Jagose allowed Wu to keep one item, a white Chanel diamante watch worth $5000.

She claimed it was a gift from her father in 2002.

However, in a costs judgment last week Justice Jagose said the police had established the watch had not been marketed until 2004, and in its particular presentation until 2007.

He said this was evidence of Wu's lies in an attempt to gain a favourable decision.

"Wu did act 'improperly' in the proceeding. As also substantiated by the circumstances of the Chanel watch, her evidence was untrue in such significant part, I did not believe her account at all," the judge said.

"This was not a mistaken account [as may occur wherever facts are disputed], but her determined attempt to mislead the court through persistent falsehoods, in deliberate breach of her formal affirmations her evidence was true and correct."

The couple's collection of vehicles which were forfeited. Photo / NZ Police

Justice Jagose said Wu's reliance on her own false evidence was "exceptional and constituted 'flagrant misconduct'.

"It was an attempt to obtain judgment in her favour by conscious and deliberate dishonesty; by fraud."

Wu claimed she knew nothing of her husband's involvement in the criminal world and asked to keep some of the assets, including a house, a Ferrari, Porsche, half a million dollars in cash and 42 watches, jewellery pieces, handbags and wallets which she said had "particular sentimental value".

In his decision for the forfeiture orders, Justice Jagose said Wu's "blindness" to Yim's large cash deposits into their joint bank accounts, and to items connected to his offending in plain sight in their home, "literally is incredible".

"I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities the evidence is of significant criminal activity since the early 2000s, more likely than not constituted by drug offending, and associated money laundering and tax evasion," he said.

Some of the Louis Vuitton bags forfeited to the Crown. Photo / NZ Police

Justice Jagose also found the couple, who had arrived in New Zealand during the 1990s from Hong Kong and Taiwan, liable to pay the police costs for the proceeding.

The Herald was earlier granted access to previously sealed court documents, which revealed other assets restrained and seized following the police's covert surveillance operation.

It included $360,000 in lawyers' fees after Yim was found to be the apparent ringleader of the drug syndicate.

However, the Herald cannot name the lawyers and law firm involved, or the context behind the basis of the restraining orders, due to suppression orders.

Yim, who was arrested in March 2016 while driving his Mercedes Benz in East Tamaki, was sentenced in April 2017 to 11 and a half years in prison for possession of a class A drug for supply.

During his sentencing in the High Court, Justice Geoffrey Venning said he was vital to the drug scheme which imported the equivalent of 30kg of pure methamphetamine with a street value of $40m.

Some of the cash recovered by authorities during raids on Yim's properties and cars. Photo / Supplied